Do We Need War for the Young?

Over a decade ago I was attending the meeting of the Philadelphia Society, a conservative outfit with some libertarian members. It was founded, I believe, by, among others, William F. Buckley, Jr. At that particular meeting the keynote address was given by Irving Kristol, the father of American neo-conservatism. A neo-conservative is a strange bird, indeed – the predecessor of the compassionate conservative, as best as I can tell.

As with all conservatives, one cannot give a clear definition of neo-conservatism because a hallmark of conservative thinking is not to get too wedded to principles. Conservatism is, in fact, not an outlook with certain clear principles or ideas but mostly with only a certain method that is to be used as one forges public policy – indeed, any policy. The most notable conservative thinker in modern times was Edmund Burke. The philosopher most often invoked by conservatives in the West is David Hume. Both of them were very suspicious of principled thinking – they considered it a kind of dogmatism, ideology or human conceit to adhere to principles – as if we could ever identify principles at all.

By their understanding it is hubris to believe that we mere human beings could ever come up with lasting, firm principles of politics or even of ethics. Instead, the best policy is to follow the prevailing and strongest tradition in one's community. In this sense conservatism is close to pragmatism – don't fool yourself thinking that any principles can be identified by you and your pals that can be relied upon to guide conduct, public or private. The only thing you have is the authority of lasting (enough) traditional ideas, ones that "work."

The reason for the "neo" in "neo-conservatism" is that there is something new about it, after all. In America, after all, the most traditional ideas are those sketched out in the Declaration of Independence. Yet these ideas do amount to principles, something anathema to conservatism. Thus American conservatism is a bit of an anomaly. That makes sense, given that the country was born of a revolution against traditional ideas, such as monarchism, feudalism, the class structure and mercantilism. Neo-conservatives actually try to avoid the anomaly of American conservatism by not remaining very loyal at all to the letter or spirit of the revolutionary American political tradition, one that's actually more libertarian than anything else. Neo-conservatives, accordingly, are more statist and much fonder of government intervention in society than the original American conservatives.

Irving Kristol, for example, started out as a socialist or social democrat – someone who believes that socialism is fine so long as the methods by which it reaches policy decisions are democratic (enough). He then came to see that the goal of uplifting the economy cannot be achieved by socialist means – central planning, heavy government regulation and the like. But he never gave up on the idea that some measure of leadership, if not of the economy than of national culture, must come from the national government.

In this connection Kristol presented to members of the Philadelphia Society a rather shocking notion: A country needs a war now and then to maintain its proper spirit, to acclimate its young to the requirements of national unity and loyalty. American conservatives, who tended to embrace George Washington's idea of a largely isolationist foreign policy for the United States, found this a very odd idea. Many of them, especially those of a strong libertarian bent, consider it an obscene notion – have wars for purposes of consciousness raising, inspiring our youth? How crassly utilitarian could one become?

Now why am I recalling this frightening talk from Irving Kristol over a decade ago? It is because President George W. Bush is more and more often being referred to as a neo-conservative. It is not unlikely at all that one of the reasons for his eagerness to go to war against Iraq is akin to Irving Kristol's.

Sure, Bush may believe that Saddam Hussein is a vicious dictator who has some intolerable weapons that should be eliminated. But, may there not well be various other ways of pacifying Saddam beside an out and out military operation?

If, however, Bush is smitten with Irving Kristol's idea that war is actually something useful for a society, he would be disinclined to investigate those alternative ways of disarming Saddam and focus exclusively on just what he is focusing on, namely, a war with Iraq because, well, it may well be good for us all to have a war now and then. Scary thought, if you ask me.

February 6, 2003